Through The Grinder

“The wine?”

He looked into my eyes. “You.”

Oh, no…no, no, no. I couldn’t let him do this to me, I hadn’t finished my interrogation (as unorthodox as it was)…and I had to take care to keep my head…

“Are you telling me the arrangement with Matt doesn’t upset you?” I asked, pulling farther away.

“No,” he said leaning closer.

I leaned back.

“Why doesn’t it?” I asked, curious.

A barely perceptible sigh came out of him — a subtle exhale of frustration over what would probably feel to him like my second rejection of the night.

He shrugged. “Because I see my ex around, too, just like you see Matt.”

“She’s in the city then? She’s around?”

(She’s alive? is what I was really asking — because if Quinn’s theory about Bruce’s having a trigger and snapping out violently were true, it would probably have first manifested on his wife.)

“Oh, yeah, she’s around. And I hate to tell you, I’ve seen her in the Blend. You’ll probably meet her soon enough, but I hope it’ll be later rather than sooner. It’s understandable she’s come to the city. The Westchester place was this vast thing. Lots to care for — grounds, tennis courts, but at least I’m not sharing a space with her.”

“Is that what you meant earlier when you said this house is an escape?”

Bruce shifted. “Yeah, it’s an escape…from her…from the bad marriage…and just…from my past…yeah.”

My past? What did he mean by that exactly?

Bruce poured more wine for us both. “So you’re telling me that Matt’s a really stubborn guy, then? Won’t give up his rights to the duplex?”

“No…but then neither will I…”

“Joy just as stubborn?”

“I always say she gets it from her father. But I know I can be stubborn, too.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Oh, come on, and you aren’t?”

“Yeah, I can be, I guess…I was in the divorce.”

“Over what?”

“Ten years ago, when Maxi and I first moved East, Maxi had put up the money for the Westchester house, but I’d put in a decade of sweat equity. We split the proceeds from the sale after a really long, ugly fight in court. She was determined to keep it all, but I was stubborn about my position, too. My years of work had more than doubled the value of that property. The judge agreed, even though New York’s not a community property state. She made every possible argument, but the judge split it down the middle. She still says I don’t deserve a penny.”

“She put up the money originally?”

“Yeah…to be completely honest with you, Clare, ten years ago, before I started my own company, I didn’t have much. Remember I told you how I grew up in Napa?”

“Sure.”

During his visits with me at the Blend this week, Bruce had told me some general things about his background. Surprisingly, we had a lot in common. Like me, he’d been brought up primarily by his grandparents. Also, like me, he’d grown up without much money, which made his appreciation of the finer things in life all the more poignant. Frankly, I felt the same. It always amazed me when I’d meet people in Madame’s social circle. Some of Madame’s friends were old money, some new, but to many (not all, but many), the finer things were just a function of entitlement or prestige. Appreciation for the history and artistry of a thing was far from a prerequisite to ownership. I didn’t feel that way. And, obviously, neither did Bruce.

In any event, Bruce had told me it was his grandfather who had given him an early mastery of basic carpentry, plumbing, and the general set of “This Old House” skills. It led him to start working in construction, then restoration, and eventually architecture.

“Well…” said Bruce slowly, “what I didn’t tell you was that my grandfather was a handyman on a Napa Valley estate. That’s where I grew up, on the estate itself. It was Maxi’s family’s estate…and when she and I got involved, her family didn’t like it. But Maxi was used to having her way. She’s very bright, too, but she couldn’t make a career work, didn’t play nice with the other kids, you know, kept getting fired from jobs and kept losing well-heeled fiancés, too.”

“Sounds like a real gem.”

“In a lot of ways, she is. Maxi’s beautiful. Brilliant. Rich. She can be a fantastic person when she wants to be. And there were a lot of reasons a lot of men gave her multiple chances, but she was a princess, too, and a lot of men wouldn’t put up with her games. So, when the last fiancé broke it off, she ended up living back in her parents’ home. She was thirty-two at the time and very worldly, and I was barely twenty-four and, in a lot of ways, just a stupid, gullible kid. We fell in love, eloped, and I was too young to see she was using me as a way to stick it to a family she saw as trying to rule her life.”

“Were they?”

“No. Looking back on it, her family just wanted her to get a grip. But she saw them as controlling. Only, she was the one who was controlling…it took me a lot of years to see the picture clearly. It’s hard to get perspective when you’re a twenty-something ignoramus dude, you know?”

“I can’t imagine you were any such thing, Bruce. You were just young.” I knew, all too well, that waking up to reality was the toughest thing of all in a bad marriage. His brutal honesty about it impressed me. “So…it was a hard thing for you to come to terms with?”

“It took a long time to understand how Maxi saw me, if that’s what you mean…or, anyway, how she wanted to keep seeing me. It was her father who decided if he couldn’t get Maxi to use her degrees for anything constructive, if he couldn’t make anything of her, then he’d make something of me.”

“They helped you?”

“Yeah, they paid for my education and helped hook me up with some prestigious projects. I was dutiful and grateful and I stuck it out with Maxi for a long time, even after she became very hard to live with…very damaging. I was changing and she didn’t like it. I wanted to improve things, and I thought moving East would do it. I wanted to make my own mark anyway, start my own business, and I thought if I did that, and we got away from her family, I could prove something to myself as much as them…as much as her…and I did…I built my own company…doubled the value of the property Maxi bought, like I said — ”

“But you still feel guilty?” I could hear it in his voice. “You still feel you owe something to your ex? To her family?”

“Yeah, part of me does, I guess…but part of me doesn’t. Part of me feels used, Clare. I spent a lot of years with a woman who made me feel as though I were nothing — barely worthy of her. Maxi’s beautiful, like I said. She’s rich, she’s cultivated. She taught me a lot. And I really did love her. But she also made me believe I was worthless for a long time. Then one day, I stopped believing it.”

“That’s the way it happens. One day, you stop believing the lie.”

“So you can see, that’s the very reason I’m not threatened by Matt. Maxi and I, we ran our course. I’m a different person than I was when we first met. In many ways, I think she still can’t accept it, but there it is. And I know you must have your own reasons for divorcing, too. So that’s why I’m not threatened by Matt. Do you understand now?”

“Yes, I do…I do…” I said slowly, but, my feelings weren’t quite as resolved as Bruce’s seemed to be.

Not that I would ever admit it out loud. But, in my heart, I hadn’t lost all affection for my ex-husband. Matt was still a business partner…a father to my child…and a friend. The truth was, I didn’t necessarily want my ex out of my life as completely as Bruce wanted his gone from it.

I found myself staring into the flames of the fire.

“Clare?”

“Sorry. I was…uh…thinking about — ”

The investigation, I told myself. Keep going, Clare, keep him talking.

“ — about the woman you left the Blend with last week. After the Cappuccino Connection…Joy mentioned